puja.awasthi

I did not choose to become a journalist, journalism found me. All I wanted to do was tell those stories which I wanted to read but did not find. I began freelancing in college and landed my first job as sub editor at one of the country’s oldest dailies, The Pioneer, soon after in 1999. I identified my areas of interest –gender, health, education and grassroots and graduated to become senior features writer. Next, as correspondent for India’s only education magazine, Education World, I explored the links between education and development. Then, I moved to reporting for South India’s largest circulated daily, Deccan Herald, on politics and society from India’s most populated and politically important state, travelling its breadth to seek stories that had been pushed off the map. Having covered state and national elections, policy making, terrorist attacks and natural disasters, about three years ago I shifted to a weekly magazine, The Sunday Indian, which publishes in 14 languages, for the opportunity to do more detailed reporting. In addition I contribute to well regarded web sites and publications to reach out to a still wider audience.
A personal commitment to better my reporting skills has seen me avail of numerous training opportunities, among them the International Seminar on Global Security, organised by the Reuters Institute for the study of Journalism (Oxford, UK) in November 2009, the Nieman Conference of Narrative Journalism (March, 2009) and the Reuters foundation programme on writing on HIV-AIDS (November, 2008). I was also awarded the Chevening Fellowship for Young Indian Print Journalists in 2006 by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for study at the University of Westminster, London. As part of it I worked with The Independent on Sunday on the foreign desk and gave India specific inputs for stories besides writing on racism in entertainment and the celebrity culture.
The PII (founded 1963) is a independent, non-profit trust which sustains the high and responsible standards of journalism required by a developing country. Its' monthly journal Grassroots focuses on development reporting.
For the last seven years of my more than a decade old career, I have worked away from my publication's head office, moving from the country's most respected newspapers to a magazine that publishes in 14 languages, depending on my own motivation for the push to do better work. I have travelled widely to report from sites of terrorist attacks, natural and man-made disasters and scenes of physical and social crimes, honestly and with a deep sense of commitment.
Despite being hedged by a regime that is decidedly hostile to journalists my work reflects many issues that are inadequately represented in the mainstream media: marginalisation in political spaces, lower caste and Dalit oppression, death of traditional livelihoods, discrimination against the HIV positive, suppression of religious minorities under the guise of controlling terrorism, urban degeneration and the lack of safety networks.
In a state which is intensely patriarchal and where journalistic freedom is dispensable this is not an easy task. But I believe that the greatest stories flow from the greatest dangers, from areas where the threat of violence is unspoken but real.
My beliefs and convictions as a journalist were not formed in a classroom. They were shaped in the field, in the midst of electioneering, in the rough of calamities, in the rush of violence and most importantly by the millions of questions that my countrymen are asking. Those years in the field have given me some understanding of how politics and society move in this huge state, which if an independent nation, would have been the world’s sixth most populated country.
Many of my stories have led to investigations by the government. For instance one which traced the huge text book printing racket that was flourishing in the government education system, second, a story on a man who had been imprisoned for 37 years without a single court hearing caused the High Court to order an inquiry into all such cases across the state, thirdly a chance visit to an accelerated adolescent girls’ education camp and my subsequent writings on it, contributed in some small measure to a flagship, nationwide programme on adolescent girls education put into place a couple of years ago.
This work has been organized by awards at the local and state level, the latest of which was an award for journalistic excellence given by the state’s committee of accredited journalists.
However, for me, the greatest moments of happiness and satisfaction come when a story gets response and appreciation from my readers and also when it has a life changing impact. The story that I have entered for this competition, for instance, has already had a nongovernmental organisation getting in touch with the publishers to help get the protagonist treated by the country’s best doctors. As a journalist, that is my elixir, my reason to be.